by Sue Pethick
Tim bent down so he wouldn’t have to yell.
“This is the slime line. When the fish come in, they go to the belly slitters, head decapitators, and gut pullers before being washed, weighed, and graded.”
Emily nodded, trying not to gag. The sight and smell of so much blood was nauseating. Tim gave her a kindly smile.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll get used to it. Everyone does.”
After a mercifully brief perusal of the slime line, they headed for the filleting stations, Emily picking her way carefully through the fish guts and blood on the floor. It occurred to her that if her mother could see what she was doing, she’d demand that her daughter stop this foolishness and come home at once. The thought made her all the more determined to stay.
From the filleting tables, they moved on to the feeder machine, then the patching tables, where the fish were readied for cooking. Tim’s attitude was friendly and relaxed as he explained everything, but Emily noticed that he never stopped scanning the tables. When she caught a few of the workers eyeing him warily, she remembered something he’d told her at the interview. Because NOAA’s inspectors had the power to shut down a cannery when problems were found, they were sometimes seen as the enemy. Fish spoiled quickly, and every hour a cannery was off-line was an hour it was losing product and the workers weren’t getting paid. No wonder her friendly smiles weren’t reciprocated, she thought. As far as these people were concerned, the two of them were trespassers.
Tim had just finished explaining how the cooked fish were sorted and loaded onto pallets when someone at the loading dock caught his eye.
“There’s one of your roommates.” He waved. “Uki! Come say hello.”
A short woman with honey-colored skin and a fringe of blue-black hair nodded in response. As she walked over, paying no attention to the offal on the floor, Emily wondered how long it would take before she’d be as blasé about traipsing through fish guts.
Uki stopped in front of them and folded her arms.
“This is Emily Prentice,” Tim said. “She just got here from San Diego.”
“Hi,” Emily said. “Nice to meet you.”
Uki unfolded her arms just long enough to shake hands, then crossed them back over her chest.
Emily felt a twinge of anxiety. She’d never had a roommate before, and in spite of the horror stories her friends had told her, she’d been looking forward to it. Now, she wasn’t so sure. The prospect of living for three months with someone who didn’t like her was daunting.
“Hang on a second,” Tim said, reaching for his phone.
He turned away, spoke a few words, and put it back in his pocket.
“Sorry. Looks like I’m needed elsewhere. Uki, why don’t you and Emily go back to the intake area and get acquainted while I see what’s going on?”
“Yeah, sure,” Uki said. Then, to Emily: “Come on.”
Somehow, the sight of fish blood sluicing over the slime line didn’t seem quite as awful by the time she returned, and Emily realized that Tim was right when he told her she’d get used to it. Even the smell didn’t seem so bad, but then, maybe she’d just reached some sort of saturation point. Once you were completely sick of something, how much worse could it get?
She saw two guys in the same type of lab coats and rubber boots that she and Uki were wearing standing just inside the open doors, watching a load of fish being brought in. Uki raised a hand in greeting and gave the guy on the left a playful shove.
“This is Emily,” she said. “This is Dak and that’s Noah.”
“Hi,” Emily said. “How’s it going?”
“Where’s Tim?” Dak said.
Uki shrugged. “Got a call. Said he’d meet us here later.”
The other two exchanged glances.
“More problems on the line?”
Uki blew the bangs away from her face. “Must be. He looked kind of angry.”
Emily frowned. “What kind of problems?”
The three of them stared at her.
“Just problems, okay?” Noah said. “Stuff that makes the inspectors look bad.”
“The guys on the line don’t want us here,” Dak said. “They figure if they make us look bad enough, we’ll leave.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Emily said. “By law, the cannery has to be inspected.”
He shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s complicated.”
Emily felt her lips tighten. She might be the newest member of the group, but these guys hadn’t been there much longer than she had. If something serious was going on, she wanted to know.
Before she could say anything, though, Emily heard someone yell and saw movement off to her left—a huge black dog was careening toward them. Scrabbling on the slippery floor, unable to stop, the poor thing was headed straight for the slime line. If something wasn’t done, she realized, it would be a disaster.
Uki screamed and Dak and Noah jumped back as Emily stepped into the dog’s path. The impact knocked her back, but she held on, rotating her body and using the animal’s weight and momentum to direct it away from the fish tables. As her shoulder hit the ground, she released the dog and continued the roll, coming to rest facedown on the concrete floor. Her lab coat was covered in fish slime, but she was unhurt—and so, apparently, was the dog.
As she lay there on the ground, Emily saw four furry legs walk over and felt a puff of warm breath snuffling her hair. She lifted her chin, and a giant pink tongue licked her face. Everyone in the building was staring at her.
Then someone started to laugh.
CHAPTER 2
Sam Reed was not having a good day.
When he and his Newfoundland, Bear, had gone down to the ship that morning, he’d found one of the tender’s owners waiting for them. Travis Reznikoff was a good guy. Though ten years older than Sam, he had no problem deferring to his judgment when it came to the tender and—unlike the ship’s co-owner—he rarely, if ever, criticized the decisions Sam made as captain. Nevertheless, when Sam spotted him up ahead on the dock, he knew it was bad news.
Bear galloped ahead and he and Travis play-wrestled until Sam caught up. Travis had known Bear since he was a pup and the two of them had formed a solid bond—something Sam had recently capitalized on when he sought permission to bring the dog with him onboard.
“Hey, Trav,” Sam said as the two men shook hands. “What brings you down here?”
Travis gave Bear another pat and stood up. “Is Kallik around?”
Sam shook his head. “Don’t think so. He doesn’t usually get here this early.”
“How’s he doing?”
“In what way?”
Sam knew what Travis was getting at, but he wasn’t in the mood to make this any easier. As captain of a tender, he was the middleman between the fishermen at sea and the processors on shore. Every day during fishing season, he and his crew headed out to buy the day’s catch and bring it back to the docks to be sold to buyers from the canneries and fish processors. In theory, it was simple: you bought fish cheaper than you could sell it for, gave half the profit to the ship’s owners, and split the rest with the engineer and crew. But just because it was simple, that didn’t mean it was easy.
For one thing, sailing in Alaskan waters was dangerous. Weather systems that were barely a blip on the radar when they left Japan could spin into boat-battering monsters by the time they reached the northeastern Pacific, and transferring a fishing boat’s catch into a tender’s hold—a difficult job even in good weather—could quickly become life-threatening in a storm. With its hold full of fish, a tender rode low in the water, too, making it susceptible to being swamped. Add to that the physical strength and dexterity needed to move tons of slippery, cumbersome cargo, and it took an experienced crew to pull it all off. Sam had been hauling fish for most of his adult life—at twenty-seven, he was known as one of the safest captains in Ketchikan—and he resented having his judgment questioned.
Travis was scanning the ships in the harbor. “Ja
ck thinks he should go.”
Sam felt his fists clench. Jack Crompton, the ship’s co-owner, was an impatient little man, quick to find fault and eager to place blame without knowing all the facts. If Sam had known what Jack was like when he was offered the captain’s job, he never would have taken it. He squinted at Travis, trying to read his mood.
“What about you?”
“I’ve already told you: it’s your call. If you think this is just a temporary situation, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If not . . .”
He shrugged, leaving the rest unsaid.
Sam kicked the wooden dock and sent a splinter flying. Travis knew as well as he did that no one could guarantee Kallik’s work would improve, but he figured the odds were better than even that it would. After three miscarriages, Marilyn was finally out of the woods with this latest pregnancy and Kallik was getting his head back in the game. Unfortunately, she’d also had to quit work, which meant the guy needed his job more than ever. The way Sam saw it, there was no way Kallik was going to blow it.
“How’s it going with Bear onboard?” Travis said. “Any problems I should know about?”
Since breaking up with his girlfriend the month before, Sam had had no one to watch Bear while he was at work, and Travis had agreed to let the dog sail with him until he could find a dog sitter. This change of subject was a not-so-subtle reminder about who made the final decisions on the ship.
“Fine,” Sam said. “No complaints from the crew.”
“No luck finding a sitter, then?”
Sam shook his head. The truth was, the ship was probably safer with Bear onboard than without him. Newfies were natural rescue dogs, known to pull drowning victims from the water; if Sam had his way, the dog would be a permanent member of the crew.
“What’s out there is mostly for smaller dogs,” he said. “Bear doesn’t do well when he’s cooped up all day.”
“Guess we’ll just have to take it day to day, then.” Travis glanced back at the ship. “You’ll let me know if Kallik can’t cut it, right? I’ve got the rest of the crew to think about.”
“Don’t worry,” Sam said. “If there’s ever any question, he’ll be out of here in a heartbeat.”
“Glad to hear it.” Travis gave Bear a final pat. “I’ll let you two get back to work.”
His crew had shown up just as the boss was driving away. As Oscar and Ben walked down to the dock, Sam checked his watch. Travis’s visit had used up the time he’d normally have spent checking the weather report and getting coffee and donuts for everyone. Now, they’d be taking off late—never a good idea in a business where time was money.
But things had only gotten worse from there. The weather report from NOAA included a warning about a cyclone forming near the International Date Line. At that distance, they’d be in no danger of a direct hit, but the rain and chop would slow the tender down and make transferring the catch more difficult. When Kallik arrived, he and Sam went into the wheelhouse to discuss their options.
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” the engineer said as Sam showed him the map. “The water isn’t warm enough yet to get it going. By next month, sure, but not this early in the season. I say we take our chances.”
Sam frowned and reread the warning from NOAA. The same system had dumped two feet of water on Seoul before heading back out to sea, and it hadn’t broken up as predicted. What’s to say it wouldn’t keep going? He shook his head.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “I’m going to prepare for heavy weather.”
Kallik shrugged one shoulder. “We’re already running late, man. You do that, we’ll be the last ones out of here.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Sam said. “I’d rather be wrong than dead.”
Kallik went out to secure the engine room. Sam took care of the wheelhouse and went out to inform the crew. As he slid the door open, he looked back at Bear.
“Come on, boy. Better stretch your legs while you can.”
Sam and the crew spent the next half an hour rigging the safety lines and hand ropes, securing any movable objects, and closing the deck openings, ports, and deadlights. As predicted, they were the last ship underway, but Sam thought the peace of mind was worth it. Unfortunately, though, the cyclone broke up almost as quickly as it formed, and the ships that had beaten them out of port took all the best fish. Even worse, by the time they made it back to shore, the day’s by-catch quota had been met and half their haul had to be dumped. When the final figures were added up, Oscar and Ben were sullen.
“Don’t worry about it, man,” Kallik said as the crewmen stalked off. “We’ll make it up tomorrow. Get an early start. You’ll see.”
Looking back, it must have been the tension caused by the unending string of disasters that caused Sam to react the way he did. Distracted by his crew’s ill humor, he didn’t notice the murderous seagulls that dive-bombed his dog, sending Bear running for cover through the open doors of the cannery. By the time Sam got there, all he saw was some skinny guy in a white coat as he landed facedown in a pile of fish guts. It was like something you’d see on a YouTube video. Sam couldn’t keep from laughing.
Then Bear started licking fish slime off the guy’s face, and as he sat up, a bunch of wavy brown hair tumbled down the back of his soiled lab coat. That’s when Sam realized that the skinny guy on the floor wasn’t a guy at all.
“Uh-oh.”
Bear bounded toward him, fish slime sluicing off his thick coat as Sam hurried over, mumbling apologies to the line workers who stood and stared. As he reached down to give the girl a hand, she turned and smiled at him, her startling green eyes dancing.
“What the hell is going on?”
A tall, red-faced man in a hard hat was rushing toward him. The man crouched down next to the girl and flashed Sam a menacing look.
“Is that your dog? Get him out of here!”
Bear shied, baffled by the man’s reaction. Sam took his collar and looked at the girl again.
“Are you okay?”
She glanced at the man beside her and nodded.
“Go on,” the man snapped. “Get out of here, both of you. This is a food processing area. Animals aren’t allowed in here.”
“Okay, okay,” Sam said. “Come on, Bear.”
For a few seconds, the Newfoundland stood staring at the girl, refusing to leave. Then Sam gave his collar another, firmer tug. Bear turned reluctantly away and the two of them headed back out to the dock.
Yes, it had been a bad day, Sam thought, but even with everything that had gone wrong—a late start, questions about Kallik, the poor catch, plus Bear knocking the girl down and the trail of fish slime they were leaving in their wake—the day might not have been a complete disaster if at just that moment they hadn’t run into Jack Crompton.
The tender’s co-owner stood just outside the cannery doors, his face flushed, his thin black mustache bristling. When Sam and Bear walked out, he pointed a finger at them and his eyes narrowed.
“I want to talk to you.”
CHAPTER 3
Back inside the cannery, things quickly returned to normal. Loads of fish were once again coming through the open doors, landing wetly on the metal tables, and the people on the slime line had returned to their work. If it hadn’t been for the ache in her shoulder, Emily might have thought she’d dreamed the whole thing.
“Are you okay?” Tim said, helping her up.
“Yeah. Just shaken a little.” She looked down at the ruined lab coat. “Can’t say the same for this thing, though.”
The others crowded around her, shaking their heads admiringly.
“That was awesome!” Uki told her.
“Yeah,” Dak said. “How did you do that?”
Tim looked at them. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Her!”
“You didn’t see it?”
“When that dog ran in here, she just, like, grabbed it and rolled it out of the way.”
“It was l
ike kung fu or something.”
His eyebrows shot up as he gave Emily an incredulous look. “You did?”
She shrugged modestly. “It was aikido, actually. I’ve been a black belt for a couple of years. When I saw the dog coming toward me, I knew I had to do something.”
The look on their faces—a combination of awe and disbelief—made her shy. If Emily’s sensei had seen what she’d done, he’d have told her it was a pretty sloppy performance. The first principle of tori was to avoid an attack, not invite it as she had, and she’d misjudged the weight of the dog, too, making it harder for her to control what happened once the attack commenced. Nevertheless, as the two of them collided, she’d employed aiki, the joining of forces, to redirect the dog’s momentum into a roll that had left it unhurt—the basic tenet of aikido. If only she hadn’t lost her footing and tumbled onto the floor herself, she’d have considered it a perfect outcome.
“It was no big deal. More of a reflex than anything.”
“Well, whatever it was,” Uki said, “I want to get me some. That was a seriously big dog.”
“Yeah,” Noah added. “I thought it was going to kill you.”
Tim darted a furious look at the open doors. “If that’s the case, then I’m just glad you’re okay. And I’m very glad that dog didn’t make it to the slime tables. If it had, this whole place might have had to shut down.”
Emily looked around. She remembered seeing a man rush over to help her before Tim showed up, but he and the dog had disappeared before she got to her feet. She wondered where they’d gone.
“Where is he, the guy with the dog?”
“Out on the dock,” Tim said. “There was a man waiting for them when they stepped outside. My guess is he’s getting his butt kicked.”
“Maybe he thinks I got hurt.” She took a step in that direction. “I should let them know I’m okay.”
Tim laid a hand on her arm.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “What happens out there is none of our business.”
Emily pursed her lips. She didn’t like the idea of anyone being punished for something they didn’t do, but it was only her first day there and Tim was her boss. Surely, he knew more about these things than she did.